1) Warwick is a drain tank. This means we're decoupling his aggressive stats from his defensive stats entirely. Warwick heals more based on the bonus health he buys (and based on how long he stays in combat). Drain kits that dual-scale (e.g. a lifesteal Yi) tend to be extremely binary: they either don't live long enough for the drain to matter or they do and kill you while being immortal.

2) It is good to have a low mind-share, high reliability ability. My Q is almost the same as live. The only subtle difference is it counts as two attacks and thus double-procs on-hits (and builds two stacks). It's the button you press to top yourself up. It also does more damage to tanks, again thanks to the passive, leading to the subtlest of decision points in combats, but 99% of the time WW will use it against the nearest enemy to heal, and that's AOK.

3) Ramp-ups are cool, but they need to be appropriately gated and lead to an understandable pay-off with understandable counterplay. Currently, WW heals from basic attacks, Qs and Rs. The amount of healing he gets from these effects scales with his bonus health, but additionally whenever he procs his passive (the healing) with one of these effects, he puts a stack of Eternal Thirst on himself, which increases the heal effect by x% (currently 11%, stacks up to ten deep). That's totally overtuned, I'm sure, but we've not moved into competitive balance yet.

The effect here is that WW will try to somehow get these stacks up as soon as possible in a fight, but will generally need like 5s to get all the way there (unless he can afford to open with R, which gives him 6 stacks). Gameplay we've seen has included WWs stacking up on minions before going into a teamfight, waiting in the jungle and stacking up on durable monsters just before an engagement, WW kiting the hell out of the enemy tanks until he hits 10 and then turns, etc. It's very important that this ramp-up only benefits WW on ONE axis: defense. He doesn't get ANY more threatening through the stacks, and I believe that's a good thing. Additionally, the stacks fall off aggressively. They currently linger 1.8s and then fall off rapidly at 1 stack every 0.25s. This allows WW to "catch" himself as he falls, but it also makes it clear to the enemy what to do when the wolf becomes trouble (i.e.: kite, kite, kite).

This was part of a post in response to a fan suggestion on WW's kit:

This is a prototype version of Warwick's kit I've been working on for awhile now, it removes his dependancy on mana, and instead bases it on Bloodlust and possibly health costs.Resource: Bloodlust - In addition to Mana, Warwick's abilities are fueled by Bloodlust, which is gained by every secondsuccessive basic attack on enemy Champions, and large/epic monsters.Bloodlust lasts 5 seconds, and decays one stack at a time. Stacks up to 10 times. Basic attacks refresh the duration of Bloodlust.(Passive) - Blood Scent: Enemy champions brought below 75% health leave a trail of blood behind that only Warwick can see. While on the trail, he gains one stack of Bloodlust every 3 seconds, and [8/12/16/20%] bonus movement speed (Amounts increase at levels 1/5/9/13). Abilities enhance the effects of Bloodlust.If Warwick reaches 10 stacks of Bloodlust for any reason, he is sent into a Feral Rage for 6 seconds. Feral Rage locksWarwick out of all of his abilities during this time, but doubles the passive bonuses of his abilities to be doubled.

(Q) - Reaping Slash:[Passive] Each stack of Bloodlust causes Warwick's basic attacks to deal bonus 3/3.5/4/4.5/5 magic damage, and heal Warwick for the same amount.[Active] Warwick slashes the area in front of him in a wide, short cone, moving enemies slightly in the direction his claw was moving and dealing physical damage based on current health of enemies hit and applying all on-hit effects, healing himself for 40/50/60/70/80% of the damage dealt. Warwick alternates claws with each successive use of this ability. Basic attacks reduce the cool-down by 0.5 seconds, doubled against champions and large/epic monsters.Damage: 20/40/60/80/100 (+.75totalAD) + 4/5/6/7/8% of Current Health as Physical Damage + On-hit effects Cool-down: 4 secondsCost: 2 Bloodlust; 35/40/45/50/55 ManaRange: 100*, 250 distance

(E) - Dread:[Passive] Warwick reveals nearby blood trails through the fog of war, each stack of Bloodlust increases the detection range by 50/75/100/125/150 distance. Champions below 40% are also revealed by this effect while within range. *(Feral Rage) Enemies below 80% are revealed by this effect.*[Active]Warwick releases a blood chilling howl over up to two seconds, determining the range of the howl based on the duration it was channeled. Enemies within range of the howl are struck with Dread, reducing their movement and attack speeds by 14/18/22/26/30% for up to 4 seconds. While Dread persists on a target, Warwick gains 120/150/180/210/240 attack range against them, leaping towards them to close the distance, and pulling them backwards half that distance, consuming Dread.Range: 500-1500 DistanceSlow: for 2 secondsCool-down: 14/13/12/11/10 SecondsCost: 3 Bloodlust; 80/90/100/110/120

(R) - Infinate Duress :[Passive] Warwick gains 1/1.5/2% additional health from healing effects per point of Bloodlust.[Active] Warwick runs his prey down, violently tearing them apart. Warwick delivers 4/6/8 total attacks (+1per75AD/100AP), each one applying on-hit effects. Warwick consumes one of his alloted attacks to close the distance between him and his target by 150/200/250+(50% of totalMS) distance until he reaches his target, suppressing the target once he reaches them. Once he consumes all of his attacks against the target, he delivers an infectious bite to the target, draining health based on missing health over 3 seconds.Damage of each attack: 50/80/110 (+1.0bonusAD) + on-hit effects8/12/16% of missing health totalCost: 4 Bloodlust; 100/150/200 ManaCool-down: 130/110/90 Second

Any criticism is welecome.

Hi! Some quick pointers from someone who just wrapped up preliminary work on a new WW kit:

1) The biggest issue here is direction. What would that new WW be? My impression is a very mobile fighter (three moveblocks now plus the old MS buff) who'd stack AD and mostly benefit from some little self-heal on the side. Once we'd be done balancing this kit, one of these aspects would have gone down the drain.

2) Your Q is something we considered and discarded early on. Two reasons:a) Mini-knockbacks are SUPER ear-flicky. There is actually a LOT more power in them than you assume, but even when you bring them down to the point where there isn't excessive power, it still feels awful to be disrupted with such frequency. The ratio between WW's satisfaction (lowish) and the enemy's frustration (highish) is off.b) The "claw moves from left to right in a small cone" is what I call imaginary gameplay. You'd imagine there'd be decision making involved in such an ability for WW and his enemy, but there really isn't. A melee range ability with a hit shape like that is either reliable enough for WW to hit (in which case there is no playing around it to dodge it) or so unreliable that it'll randomly miss.

3) The secondary resource is overly designery. What you actually get from it is some amount of in-combat ramp-up, which can be cool on certain kits (specifically kits that allow you to stay in combat until the ramp-up kicks in), but on your kit would only lead to an unkillable duelist who cannot function in teamfights (since he'd get burst down before the ramp-up kicks in). Also, having a resource that both gives you persistent bonuses AND is consumed for active effects is just awful for the player; it's messy unclear optimzation. You really don't know what your optimal play is and you'll never know after an engagement whether you did it right or not. We stay away from dual purposes resources for that very reason. (I also had a consumable resource that gave you persistent effects on the kit early, and it failed for exactly that reason).

Your instincts are spot-on thematically though!

And btw, this isn't stuff that we magically know better than you because of some secret designer bible; this is all stuff we've tried out and learned from in countless playtest (we playtest new / in development kits twice a day, every day; you quickly learn a lot of lessons)

Thank you for sharing your kit with me and let me know if you have any more questions!

Plans on New Team Builder Queue Reduction Experiments

We've gone over the full week of data, and have decided to stop the experiment later this week. After we stop the experiment later in the week, all players will be able to be Captains again until we use some of the data we collected to design a new feature that can nudge players towards Captains or Solos depending on what's needed.

I'll write a full post about the results of the experiment and discuss some of Team Builder's next few features in light of the data as well.

Very good. Although I only queue as a solo support/jungler, I still didn't like this change. It seemed to scream "you can't be captain, even if you would like to". I noticed my queue times going up siginificantly (10 seconds > 3-5 minutes as a support), but overall it was still okay. Probably also had a lot to do with URF. Heck even I played mostly URF in the last couple of days. It was something new and fun and planned to last only a couple of days (although I think the novelty would run out quickly and balancing problems would become more apparent if URF would be changed into a permanent game mode).

Queue times in many modes were impacted by URF Mode, so the increase you saw was most likely due to URF and not due to the experiment!

can u also put a counted of how many people are looking for groups in a certain role so i know how long i would wait to join a group ex: 500 top tank 250 top fighter 50 top assisans 750 mid mages 80 mid assisans and so on it seems it would be faster to find a group if u knew what was needed

We're working on something like this, where we can show players what's currently in demand so they can fill for roles that are in high demand.

Lyte, any thoughts on perhaps increasing the search paramaters for a captain? For example, being able to chose multiple specific roles. Rather than any or 1 specific role, such as fighter, I'm thinking of something like check boxes. All would select every role of course. Alternatively you could search for fighter, tank, assasin while excluding mage, marksman, etc. Any thoughts on perhaps trying to merge blinde queue and teambuilder in the future? They seem to share essentially the same population in terms of what you are looking for in the game. Most people I know who still use Blind queue do so because of the much shorter queue times and the fact that they are willing to play multiple roles.

Right now, Captains can select "Any Role" with a Position, so they are pretty flexible with that. We'd rather keep it that way for now, instead of allowing even more resolution to specifically choose a subset of the roles.

For Solos, we're looking into multi-role selection as a potential feature in the future but it's not something that we think is an immediate need in the system. We're first going to be looking into giving Solos more information about what roles are currently in demand, so they can "fill" for teams if they like.

Lyte, any thoughts on perhaps increasing the search paramaters for a captain? For example, being able to chose multiple specific roles. Rather than any or 1 specific role, such as fighter, I'm thinking of something like check boxes. All would select every role of course. Alternatively you could search for fighter, tank, assasin while excluding mage, marksman, etc. Any thoughts on perhaps trying to merge blinde queue and teambuilder in the future? They seem to share essentially the same population in terms of what you are looking for in the game. Most people I know who still use Blind queue do so because of the much shorter queue times and the fact that they are willing to play multiple roles.

Right now, Captains can select "Any Role" with a Position, so they are pretty flexible with that. We'd rather keep it that way for now, instead of allowing even more resolution to specifically choose a subset of the roles.

For Solos, we're looking into multi-role selection as a potential feature in the future but it's not something that we think is an immediate need in the system. We're first going to be looking into giving Solos more information about what roles are currently in demand, so they can "fill" for teams if they like.

Lyte, any thoughts on perhaps increasing the search paramaters for a captain? For example, being able to chose multiple specific roles. Rather than any or 1 specific role, such as fighter, I'm thinking of something like check boxes. All would select every role of course. Alternatively you could search for fighter, tank, assasin while excluding mage, marksman, etc. Any thoughts on perhaps trying to merge blinde queue and teambuilder in the future? They seem to share essentially the same population in terms of what you are looking for in the game. Most people I know who still use Blind queue do so because of the much shorter queue times and the fact that they are willing to play multiple roles.

Right now, Captains can select "Any Role" with a Position, so they are pretty flexible with that. We'd rather keep it that way for now, instead of allowing even more resolution to specifically choose a subset of the roles.

For Solos, we're looking into multi-role selection as a potential feature in the future but it's not something that we think is an immediate need in the system. We're first going to be looking into giving Solos more information about what roles are currently in demand, so they can "fill" for teams if they like.

@tomabernathy What direction do you guys plan on taking Riven? Looking at her Rivals, she might be a way to tell the Ionian War from a Noxian point of view and the consequences of using bioweapons. But what about her drive to change Noxus because of it?By cutting Swain out as a Rival does that mean that part of her that wants to change Noxus for the better is gone?

@Lady_Cardboard In truth, she's not a main focus at the moment. We're working on some larger stuff in other locales, coming later this year+But we'll get back to her - & other involved parties - before long. The wind changes direction from time to time. ;-)

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So they are going to remove all of Warwicks offensive abilities? No more AS buff, Q probably nerfed, more focus on self-healing. His lifesteal now depends on his tankiness.

How exactly does he accomplish anything? Enemy will just ignore him completely. Right now at least boosting his offense also boosts his lifesteal potential either through Attack Speed or AP. Now he will just be a big unkillable beast that doesnt do anything.

Warwick no longer needs a rework after Feral Flare is released, he works perfectly fine with it. His single target killing potential combined with his teamwork potential especially with the new summoner heal is awsome.

numbers are for balance, reworks are for gameplay, how "good" warwicks power level is at the current time has NO bearing on whether or not a rework will happen, its about enhancement of his identity and adjustments to his play pattern.

Lil bit bummed they aren't gonna do anything with Riven's lore for a while. She is one of the only champs with a story that doesn't end once they join the league and I always thought that if they were to tell the story of Runterra Riven or Ezreal would be good characters to tell it through since they have reasonable excuses to be all over the place.

This game is heading more in directions i like. The only thing i hated was the skarner rework. He had counterplay in the sense of knowing whether you can engage him or not. He is a giant scorpion, kill him or be destroyed, don't derp on him and think you can get away.(what they did now)

You did a hash job of Skarner, and while Rengar (and Skarner) needed to be sorted out, you put them in difficult positions since you're fairly obsessed with counter play lately. Which is nice but the flaws stand out more than they should.

Surely the focus should be on taking out a few of the far stronger characters in the League, the discussion went on that Skarner was a bit too strong and stuck too hard, but that was advertised as the main appeal for Vi?

Work on the tanky AP champions as you've mentioned, leave League to settle and tone and nerf slightly until there is a comfort zone for reworks. There are far too many variations to the game and champions being thrown up onto the game at once.

I loved graggy (despite I knew from long time that he was one sick champ, with more than just drinking problem) but they cho'gath'd+olaf'd him at once. He is a weak cho'gath version and weak overrall now. Don't see a reason to be picking him T_T

Vi does the same thing Skarner was so popular for: Guaranteed death if you land your ultimate. Skarner had to stack movement speed items and his Flash to even have a chance at getting off his ultimate. Vi just uses Q+R and there is nothing you can do about it. Skarner can be knocked back or stunned, Vi cannot.

The whole "counter play" mania doesn't seem to apply to all champions. Skarner hits you with E and what then? After that he has to run up to you and apply two Q's before he even starts to deal (sustained) damage. By the time Skarner has reached his enemies the slow is already gone again. The movement speed boost on his W sucks and his mana costs are atrocious.

Then we have characters like Lee Sin who have two instant gap closers and on top of that Lee Sin also slows total attack speed and for 4 seconds at rank one. Compared to that a 2.5 second slow doesn't do anything. He also gets to be so flexible that he can max whatever the hell he wants, because he gets his dps for free with his passive. Also he's manaless.

Lee Sin feels like a powerful character all the way, while Skarner feels like a hero that is supposed to suck. Oh cool, my passive reduces my cooldowns and I'm getting rewarded for being in melee range. Say hello to retarded mana costs, long base cooldowns, low base attack speed (don't you dare building attack speed, dummy!) and low mobility.

Another example for that is Lissandra's passive. Her base mana regeneration is just really bad and she gets a free spell to compensate for that. Basically, she doesn't have a passive.

Soraka? The same thing. Riot removed her passive basically and she's still as abusive and strong as ever. Is she fun? Yeah, but only because Riot always manages to make one of her spells really strong while the rest is garbage. Right now her Q is the only reason to even play Soraka.

Instead of giving the bland champions something, Riot mostly just takes away and makes them even easier. Mid lane Annie used to be about managing her passive, but that's long gone now and she can do whatever she wants and still always have stun up.

I would like to see more things like Ashe's passive rework. It's still not great, but at least it has some gameplay on a very basic champion and it fits her niche as a strategic champion.

Actually, Skarner's mana costs are much lower than Hecarim's. I think his biggest issue is the fact that the MS boost on Crystalline Exoskeleton is pathetic. If Hecarim could only go up to 32% bonus MS, he'd be completely useless too. Sure, he doesn't have Skarner's ranged slow, but still. Besides, the projectile is so slow the enemy has often made it too far by the time it connects.